Micah 3:12, commentary and pictures

The warning is that Zion would be broken up for farming like open ground, Jerusalem piled into rubble heaps, and the temple hill left tangled and overgrown like wooded heights. It was threatened because rulers built up Zion and Jerusalem by bloodshed and wrongdoing, perverting justice for bribes and using sacred office for gain, while presuming that God's presence among them made disaster impossible. When Hezekiah and Judah heard it they feared God, sought His mercy and pleaded with Him, so the threatened ruin was turned aside, and the elders in Jeremiah's day cited that mercy to show that announcing Jerusalem's fall was no cause to kill a prophet. The doom fell at last upon stubborn rejection of Christ and His final call to repent, and was seen fulfilled when Jerusalem was besieged by Rome, starved and laid waste, its walls, palaces and temple razed until the holy house site lay as broken, plowed ground. The same words also portray a desolation soon to come in the last days that will be universal and certain, though its hour cannot be told, so all must be ready for the Son of man to come when He is not expected.

Sin Provoking Threatened Desolation

The threatened desolation is that Zion would be plowed like a cultivated field for their sake, Jerusalem reduced to piles of ruins, and the mountain of the house become like wooded heights, with the temple mount left overgrown as a forest.

The ruin was threatened because Zion was built up with bloodshed and Jerusalem with iniquity, justice corrupted by violence and gain. Its heads judged for reward and its priests taught for hire, practicing religion for profit, yet they leaned upon the Lord and trusted that His presence among them meant no evil could come upon them and that their standing as His people would protect them. They departed farther from the Word of the Lord and, despite their profession, bore no good fruit. Righteousness and equity were not permitted to bear sway, and they persisted as workers of iniquity in an evil course even after God sent His Son to win them back.

In Jeremiah's day the elders cited this warning as precedent that foretelling Jerusalem's destruction was no ground for putting a prophet to death. Hezekiah and Judah did not put Micah to death for it, but feared the Lord, sought His favor and mercy, and pleaded with Him. Because of that response the threatened disaster was turned aside and withdrawn. The example stood as a warning that killing Jeremiah could bring great evil upon the people themselves.

Fulfillment Past and Future

The judgment fell because of stubborn corruption and rejection of Christ, with rebellion and uncontrolled passions leading to ruin. It came after rejecting the visitation and the Redeemer, refusing salvation and the final opportunity to repent, and refusing warnings. The leaders rejected and killed Christ while claiming His death would preserve the nation, yet that belief did not avert the foretold ruin.

Christ sees the prophecy fulfilled in Jerusalem's destruction under Roman siege, when the city was besieged and destroyed and Jerusalem was reduced to heaps and laid waste. Its inhabitants were brought to starvation and death, and its walls, buildings, palaces and temple were ruined and razed. The temple itself was ruined, with the ground where the holy house had stood plowed as a field and its site plowed like a field. This devastation was the retribution for rejecting salvation after the Jewish nation's rejection of Jesus led to destruction by the Romans.

The prophecy's words proved certain despite Jerusalem's apparent strength. The leaders had built up Zion through bloodshed and injustice, corrupted justice with violence and practiced religion for gain, yet trusted in their status as God's people and expected protection from His presence among them. Their trust that no evil could come and that Christ's death would preserve the nation did not avert the foretold ruin of city and temple mount laid waste.

The verse also shows scenes of destruction and desolation that will soon come in the last days and be universal. They will be witnessed just as clearly described, as surely as the desolation of San Francisco was seen. How soon they will come cannot be told, so all must be ready because the Son of man comes in an hour not expected and in such an hour as they think not.